Week 4 – POTCERT

Hello fellow educators!

I don’t know about you, but this has been a real journey in self exploration in terms of re-visiting my current pedagogy and educational practices.  This is my 18th year of teaching (holy cow! did i just say that out loud?), I have never formally taught online, but I use a lot of techy stuff to enhance my f2f classes.  I love to be thinking about what I do in the classroom in such a “formal” way.  Everything we are discussing and reading about are things a I “naturally” do in my classes, I am enjoying the articulation process.

As we further discuss course development, my vision becomes more and more clear.  Each week of my online Spanish course will include the following:

Students will complete activities in this order (Important! see p. 64 of Teaching Online)

1. A short video of me introducing the expectations for the week.  Place to leave comments/ask questions…  (ideally these get forwarded to me via text or e-mail so I can quickly respond)

2. Vocabulary/Grammar/Culture “presentation” or “lecture.”  Topics will vary by week.  This can be a personally narrated PPt and/or publisher produced text book video.  Place to leave comments/ask questions…  (ideally these get forwarded to me via text or e-mail so I can quickly respond)

3. Activities:

• Written practice– publisher provided (WebSAM activities)
• Reading practice– publisher provided (WebSAM activites) and/or web based article with comprehension questions in English so that straight copying does not occur.  [Also.. see below: partner activities]
• Listening practice– publisher provided (WebSAM activites) and/or web based video with comprehension questions in English/Spanish.  [Also.. see below partner activities]
• Speaking practice– partner work [see below]

Each week will contain variations of each type of these activities.

4. Group/partner work- to build a sense of community, some sort of interaction between classmates will occur weekly.  Ideas include:

• Icebreaker– As discussed in Teaching Online, love this idea and need to explore the topic more in depth!  Facebook?
• Discussion forums– (asynchronous) regarding lectures and or WebSAM activities.  I envision this to be an “online room” where one can post a question and others answer. (not graded)  This may take place on Facebook???
• Pair work– Pilar has a google doc where students sign up to do pair work.  This could be a great way of organizing this. (Note to self: ask Pilar to show you how this works)
• Pair work may consist of speaking, reading, etc activities.  I like the idea of students reading aloud to each other in a synchronous session and getting immediate feedback from a student.  Perhaps one student reads a short article, the other student summarizes what that person has said in English…  or answers questions…  something to check comprehension that does not include the use of the target language.
• More pair work- speaking: pair students up to have a mini conversation (similar to what David D. does), record and e-mail to instructor for grading.  (graded with a speaking rubric)
• Group work– students sign up in groups (google doc from Ms. Pilarcita) Topics will vary from culture to grammar to conversation to who knows!  Students will work on a wiki (graded by me using a rubric).  Students will have synchronous (perhaps 1 or more) discussions via a tool with a white board for easy visual communication like Elluminate or Skype.  Discussion will be recorded so that I may watch later for participation points.  Perhaps each student is assigned a role for easier communication.

5. Assessment- each week will have some sort of assessment  not necessarily a formal quiz or exam.  It will entail something that ensures that students are on track and meeting the expectations.  This allows for communication between instructor and students and helps student to be more successful.  Time & time again, if students feel they are part of a community and that someone actually cares whether they are there or not, they will be more successful.

6. Communication-

• E-mail: student to student/ instructor to student/ student to instructor
• Office hours:  instructor presence online at a certain time with synchronous communication using a whiteboard and speaking tools (ie. Elluminate, Skype, etc)
• Chatback badge- does this still exist?  Allows for instantaneous chatting with instructor when online.

Teaching Online suggest that the instructor create “rules of conduct” for various forums.  I believe this is a good idea but I question whether students will actually read it… and follow it?